Although it really looks like I exaggerated the amount of pictures of blonde people from the Solomon Islands; I had a reason. The text here given is endlessly repeated as example of early African presence in China. The yellow hair however shows we have here people from the Solomon Islands. In older texts you even see that the translation "yellow hair" is replaced by "hair the color of varnish". Looking at a world map it is clear that the Solomon Islands are the closest by place for the Chinese to find black people.
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Chu Yu : P'ing-chou k'ot'an (1119) (Pinzhou
Chats)
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The Pingzhou ketan 萍洲可談 "Matters Worth Discussing from Pingzhou" by scholar Zhu Yu 朱彧. He came from Wucheng 烏程 (modern Wuxing 吳興, Zhejiang). The book includes very heterogenous material about popular tales, stories about customs and habits, information on court rituals and administrative rules. The black people he talks about are most probably from Asia.
Taken from : The
Muslim Merchants of Premodern China: The History of a Maritime ...John W. Chaffee.
Taken from: Teobaldo Filesi: China and Africa in the Middle ages
Also called Zhu Yu: Pingzhou Ketan
Yuan 2 §2
Using units of 10%, all fine goods such as real pearls and Borneo camphor are levied at 10%; and all coarse goods such as tortoise shells and sandalwood are levied at 30% and there are different
assessments among the market officials. After this the merchants receive back the remainder of their goods. Consignments of ivory weighing 30 jin 斤 (1) and of frankincense are all subject to monopoly purchase in the official market, apart from the levy, so merchants with large shipments of ivory have to divide into
pieces of less than 30 jin (1), so that by the regulations they can be exempt from the official market.
Note: as the Chinese are receiving here frankincense which comes from Arabia and Somalia it might also be that other imports in the shipment come from Arabia e.g. ivory. As to the weight of
the tusks average African tusks are (50 to 70 chin) and Asian (35 chin).
Yuan 2 §4
At sea they (Chinese navigators) are not afraid of the wind and the waves, but of getting shoaled, for they say that if they run aground there is no way of getting of again. If the ship suddenly
springs a leak they cannot mend it from the inside, but they order their foreign slaves (lit. devil slaves) to take knives and oakum and mend it from the outside, for the foreign slaves are
expert swimmers, and do not close their eyes under water.
Yuan 2 §7
Every country in the southern ocean has its own chief. Sanfotsi (2) was named the greatest country. It possesses its own writing system and its people are skilled at calculation. Some merchants
say that they even predict future eclipses of the sun and moon. But their writing system is unknown to the Chinese. There is a great deal of sandalwood and frankincense there for trade with the
Chinese. Sanfotsi ships send frankincense to China and the Chinese Trade Office treats the product as a monopoly and buys the whole cargo after taking customs duties. In recent times Sanfotsi (2)
established a sandalwood monopoly and the ruler orders merchants to sell to him. The product's market value increases several times. The subjects of that country do not dare sell privately. This
is an effective system. The country is right in the center of the Southern Sea. Ta-Shih [Perso-Muslim] countries are far to the West. Chinese bound for Ta-Shih reach Sanfotsi (2) and repair their
ships and exchange goods. Distant merchants congregate here and therefore it is considered the most prosperous place.
Note: the Chinese seem to be unaware that the Frankincense comes originally from Arabia and Somalia.
Yuan 2 §8
Most of the wealthy in Kuang-chou (Canton) possessed kuei nu (devil or negro slaves). They are very strong, able to carry weights of several hundred catties (one catty 750gr). Their speech and their desires are unintelligible... Their nature is simple and they do not run away. They are called wild men. Their color is black as ink, their lips are red and their teeth white, their hair is curly and yellow (huang). There are males and females.... (Their sexes are classified to denote the male and female of animals and some birds). They live in the mountains (or islands) beyond the sea. They eat raw things. If, in captivity, they are given cooked food, in a few days they get diarrhea.... (diarrhea is called schanging the bowls "huanchang"). This makes some of them fall ill and die. If they do not die one can keep them. After they have been domesticated for a long time they are able to understand human speech, but they can not utter it themselves. There is also a kind of offshore savage, who does not lives into the water, which is called Kunlun slave (4).
In the eight century
two dwarf woman and two Seng-chi women (Zangi) were presented to the emperor by the ruler of Sri Vijaya. (3)
See note on Zangi
slaves
(1) jin 斤 (=chin). Also called catty is 604gr.
(2) Sanfotsi: was an empire that controlled many territories in the strait of Malacca, eastern Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.
(3) Sri Vijaya: Srivijaya; was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra.
(4) see my : Note on KUNLUN empire (800)